Hi, YouTube, its Kathy and this is my October 2018 reading wrap-up.
If you're not already aware, I do Weekly Entertainment Wrap Ups of everything I
read, watch, and listen to, but once a month I just do a video of the books.
I'm also running on very little sleep because I'm sick AF, so we're going to
try and do this as quickly as possible. I have tea and tissues; so let's do this!
I'm going to start with the nerdy, hardcore stats and charts, and then get into what I read.
In October, I read 20 books and DNF'd 2 additional books, for a total of 5,814 pages.
total of 5,814 n pages. That takes into account
That takes into account converting audiobook minutes to pages, so 1933 of those pages were actually about
55 hours of audio. The age breakdown for these books was 16 adult books, 4 YA books,
and 2 middle grade books. I read 13 novels, 1 of which I DNF'd,
5 graphic novels, 3 anthologies, and 1 short story, which I also DNF'd.
This month, I read a bunch of horror for various readathons, but also managed to
sneak in some fantasy, contemporary, mysteries, speculative fiction, poetry and
nonfiction. If you adjust by page count, the poetry gets real small, and the
horror and contemporary grow the most. Most of these books, no surprise, came
from the library, but I also read some I own. I read 8 paperbacks, 7 hardcovers,
6 audiobooks, and 1 uncorrected proof. Most of my books were in the
300 - 3999 pages range, and the vast majority were published in the last decade.
Most of these books were by female authors and
many protagonists were female, with a few male protagonists, and ensemble casts, and
some books without protagonists. In terms of setting, half of these books were set
in the States, with others being set in other worlds, China, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
In terms of diversity, we had some translated works, own voices
representation, queer content, books involving race, and mental health reads,
but a large selection of them had no diversity to speak of.
In terms of star ratings this month, I had one 1 star book, one 2 star book, six 3 star
books, four 3.5 star books, four 4 star books, two 4.5 star books,
and four 5 star books. Let's start with the lowest rated read it and
work our way up to the highest, shall we? My 1 star read was one of the ones I
DNF'd, which is no surprise. It's American Psycho. I did not really care for this.
I quit after 25 pages. I was originally reading this for a challenge where you
read a book that has been adapted into a movie.
I remember really enjoying the movie many, many years ago when I watched it,
mostly because I've been fanning over Christian Bale since Newsies, and I
totally understand that the book is supposed to be a satire about the yuppie
culture of the time, but it was just too much for me.
Similarly, my 2 star read was another DNF, and that was The Body by Stephen King.
I actually picked up this short story so I could try to complete the challenge
that I was trying to use American Psycho for, and again, I didn't get very far.
I got further in this one, though. The reason why I lost interest in this one
is you get a few chapters in and then all of a sudden the main character
flashes forward to a short story that he wrote in college. So he just writes out
the whole short story and then gives you some critiques about it, and it really
has no place in a short story about children going to find a body in the woods.
My first 3 star read was Ghosts in Amityville. This is a children's middle grade graphic novel about the house in
evil this is a children's middle grade graphic novel about the house in
Amityville that is very haunted, if you believe in those things. This house has
been the subject of not one, but two, movies about what took place during the
time frame that is also taking place in this graphic novel, and I used to watch
the original movie all the time as a kid. I've seen the remake and I just wanted
to re-familiarize myself with the terms of the case, and also I needed a
book with a haunted house in it. Speaking of haunted houses, my next read
was The Fearsome Foursome, which is a Disney property book about four kids
that are in the Haunted Mansion and the librarian is telling them scary stories.
The catch, however, is each of the stories is about them. This one was okay; it was
middle grade level of spooky, which was perfect. It had a little bit of
questionable content that I was just going, "what are you trying to teach small
children, Disney?" And I'm not even talking about the spooky aspects of the stories.
I'm talking about how the kids interacted and sometimes it was a little bit not quite great.
My next 3 star read was Broken Monsters.
This one is about a case involving a corpse that is found that is half human, half deer.
So obviously this one sounded weird and creepy and I picked it up for those reasons.
I really enjoyed this one up until about the last 50 pages, when it
all of a sudden went strange and supernatural without any real lead into
that, and I also had problems with the timeline that was laid out in the book.
But other than that, I really enjoyed the reading experience; it just didn't Wow me in the end.
My next 3 star read is a poetry collection called
The Hungry Ghost Festival by Jen Campbell. This one only has a 3 star because I'm
not the type of person that can sit down and dissect poetry. That's not an
enjoyable thing for me to do, personally, and these are the type of poems that you
really have to do that with. I enjoyed the poems while I was reading them,
but nothing really stuck with me afterwards, because I don't dissect my poetry, like I said.
This is a collection of short stories about witches. Here's the thing: there are some
really great authors in this anthology, some of the stories were really great,
but because I was reading it for a read-a-thon, so you're trying to read as
much as possible, I don't really remember all of the stories.
I feel like anthologies are best read over a course of time, where you read one story,
you put it down, you think about the story, you'll eventually go back to the
next story, but because I was trying to get it all read for Sbooktober,
I didn't do that. And this is why any time there's a challenge for a read-a-thon
that says "read an anthology," I'm just like, "well, I'm not really gonna care
about that anthology by the end of it." Regardless, I really did enjoy the
reading experience and if you're looking for something spooky or some short
stories, especially that have to do with witches, then this is a great read to pick up.
I just wouldn't suggest doing it during a read-a-thon I probably would
have given this a higher star rating if I had taken my time. and there was a page
break in my notes so now my final three star read was I know you know this book
This book is interesting in that it takes place in a small town in the UK where 20 years
previously, there were murders of a couple of children, and now the best
friend of those two children is going back to that town because he has some
questions about the investigation. The person who was found guilty of killing
his two best friends recently killed himself in prison, and there are some
people that think that he wasn't actually the person who did it.
What really drew me to this is that he starts a podcast discussing the case and
because I like my true crime podcasts, and because I like podcasts in general,
I thought that this was a really interesting premise. Also, if you saw my
monthly wrap up from September, you know I read Sadie and that has a very similar
premise and I really enjoyed it. I read this one as an audiobook and one
of the readers, because there are three, is Steve West ,who is the same person
who did the Strange the Dreamer audiobook, so it was nice to hear his
voice again, but I have some problems with how this audiobook was done.
Normally I would be very excited about a book having three different readers, but
because the re are certain characters that overlap in two
of the different voices, kind of, lives, reader A has a voice for that person and
reader B has a voice for that person and they're not the same voice. I would have
really preferred if this was a full cast narration, as opposed to just narrowing
it down to three narrators for the three, kind of, main people. Additionally, the
person creating the podcast is a filmmaker, so I know he knows things
about sound, and visual but that doesn't come into play in podcasts, so I was
really annoyed every once in a while and he'd say, "oh I met this person in a
coffee shop and we had her interview" - "oh, I met this person in a park and we had
our interview". I mean, you can't actually record a good podcast where the
interview [is] in a busy location like that. You just can't, and then if you do, an
audiobook like this should include those sounds instead of just having it be a
straight narration from the one person. If all of the people that appeared in
the podcast had their own voice actors, it would have been such a better audio book.
That's just me being picky, though. I did enjoy this book, there were just
those elements that brought it down for me. My first 3.5 star read was another
anthology, and that was She Said Destroy. This was an anthology of short horror stores,
and again, because I read it for a read-a-thon, I read it all really
quickly and I don't really remember much of the individual stories. I remember
little visions from some of them, but I would have to refer back to them and
kind of read the first paragraph or so to really remember all of the stories.
I try to rate my reads right after finishing them so I can remember how
much I enjoyed them and it appears that I enjoyed this one better than the other
anthologies I've mentioned so far. My next 3.5 star read was Bruja Born.
This is a second in the Brooklyn Bruja series, and where the first book followed
one sister, this book follows another. The story picks up about seven months after
the events of the first book, and there's not really much I want to tell you about it,
not only because I don't want to spoil the first book for you, but because
the second book has a major twist very close to the beginning, and I don't want
to wreck that for anyone. I went into it not knowing anything, and I'd love to
pass that gift on to you. What I can tell you about this is I really enjoy
the magic system, I really enjoyed the family dynamic and if you read the first
book and you're kind of on the fence about reading the second book, you'll
probably feel about the same, but it's not bad it's just not phenomenal.
My next 3.5 star read was Moonstruck, Volume 1.
This one is about two women who just started dating and they're werewolves. Now, this
is not "they're werewolves in a world where everyone else is human" - everyone in
this world is magical or mystical in some way. One of their best friends is a
centaur, somebody has snakes for hair - everyone's different and it's great.
A group of them decide to go to a magic show one night and something changes,
one of them gets cursed and then they have to fix it.
I'm going to talk about the next 3 books all together. One of them was a 3.5 star read and the next
two were 4 star reads, and that's the first three volumes of Tokyo Ghoul.
This is a manga series set in Japan where there are these creatures called ghouls
which are kind of like vampires but they can walk around and day. They don't have
the same constraints of vampires, but they do eat humans, or at least some of
them do; others abstain, or rather eat human set of died by natural causes.
Due to an accident, our protagonist ends up part human, part ghoul, and has to deal with
this new world. I really enjoyed the first two volumes. The third volume was
the one that I gave about a half star less - and I think that might just be
because with serialized things like this, I need to read them back to back to back,
otherwise I forget things like names and then it doesn't have the same impact on me.
Either way, I plan to continue the series in the future.
My next 4 star read was Crazy Rich Asians. That's right; I'm one of those people who likes to
read the book before I go to see the movie. I haven't seen the movie yet, but
now I could see the movie if I wanted to. This book has a massive cast, many
people from different families or interconnected families in Asia,
specifically Shanghai and then also mainland China. Nick Young has been
living in New York with his girlfriend for a couple of years now and he's going
back to China for the wedding of his best friend, and decides to take his
girlfriend with him. Unbeknownst to her, his family is very rich, like 1% of the
1% rich, and let's just say with that comes some complications when it comes
to getting to know his family. I loved how dynamic the characters were,
and how there were several different plot lines running at once. I really enjoyed that.
This is the first of a trilogy and I'm going to have to read
the second and the third, eventually. Just seven more books and then I can have
some more cold and flu medication - yes! My last 4 star read is Occult and Battery.
This one takes place on a small island on the east coast of America, and
our main character runs a psychic shop that doesn't do too well in the Winter
because there's not a lot of tourism in the Winter. To combat this, she decides to
do a group reading at a hotel opening, because the hotel is known to be haunted,
so perfect venue for her, right? Of course, because this is a cozy mystery,
somebody ends up dead and we have to solve the mystery. This is the second in
a series, and I didn't know that when I was picking it up, but the book does a
really good job of filling you in on previous relationships and things you
need to know to understand what's going on in this book, so even though I
probably know how the first book is going to play out, I'll probably go back
at some point and read it. What I really loved about this book was there were enough
characters that there was lots of misdirection and red herrings, and the
side characters, especially her best friends, I really adored. This was a quick,
easy read and I found myself really wanting to know how it played out.
My first 4.5 star book was Children of Blood and Bone. I read this way at the
beginning of the month and really enjoyed it, This is another one I did as
an audiobook, and it was great. Normally I'd give you a rundown on this
book, but as previously mentioned, I am feeling very ill, and many other people
have talked about this book, so let's just say I enjoyed it, I didn't realize
it was going to be the first in a trilogy I'm gonna have to read the other
books when they come out, and let's move on. My other 4.5 star read was something
I absolutely devoured in the last two days of October, and that was Odd One Out
by Nic Stone. I read Dear Martin a month or two ago,
and that one made me cry, and I really enjoyed the writing and I just wanted
more, so I was very happy to find out that my library got this one in.
This book is about three friends who are all a little bit in love with each other.
What I liked is the book is chopped up into approximately thirds, so the first
third of the book is one character, then a next character, and then the next character,
and it doesn't go back and replay any scenes from different points
of view, it just continues with the timeline. In addition to all of this
sexual and emotional tension, there is a mystery element, and I spent a lot of
this book just shipping all of the characters, and wondering if two are
going to end up together, or if they were going to form a triad at the end.
This is really a coming-of-age story as characters are figuring out
their own sexuality. On to my 5 star reads, the first one being
My Best Friend's Exorcism. This is what it sounds like on the tin; somebody has a best
friend, and they need an exorcism. This one is set in the 80s, so it is full of
80s nostalgia, which was really fun to read, especially in the era where we have
things like Stranger Things. There are actually two different editions of this
book you can get. You can either get the version that I read, which has the first
few pages and the last few pages are made up like a yearbook from the 80s or
you can get the other edition, in which the cover looks like an old VHS tape.
Basically, in this book these two friends meet at one of their birthday parties
when they're young, and when they're about 17 something happens at night in
the woods and the one friend is just never the same. It's creepy, it's spooky,
it's nostalgic - just read it. The next 5 star read is very different as
it's The Travelling Cat Chronicles. this one that follows a human and a cat as
the human is trying to find a new home for the cat. What I love about this book
is you get the perspective of the human and of the cat, and for anyone who's ever
anthropomorphised an animal, you will relate to this book.
If you've ever looked at a cat and been like "this is what this cat is thinking" or
"this is what this cat is doing," you'll love it. I figured going into this book
that this was going to be one of those ones that might possibly make me cry, and
yes, some tears were had near the end, but the journey of the book is so remarkable
and I highly enjoyed it. Speaking of remarkable, I listened to the audiobook of
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. I've already read this book, so
this was a reread for me. Firstly, the reader for April May was absolutely brilliant.
She did all the sarcasm basically how it was done in my head so
it was perfect, and then one of the reasons I wanted to listen to the
audiobook after having already read the book was there is a chapter that is narrated by Hank Green.
Sorry, I just had a coughing fit so if I look even more of a hot mess, that's why. [sniffs]
This book is about a girl named April May and she's on her way
home really late one night after getting some work done, and finds this statue on
the sidewalk. At first she looks at it for like five seconds and is like,
"huh, that's neat" and walks on by, but then she feels like a complete asshat because
somebody obviously put a lot of work into this and then it's just another
thing that New Yorkers shrug at and go "ah, yeah, another cool thing, whatever".
So she calls her best friend, who makes YouTube videos, and tells him to come
down so they can make a YouTube video about the statue. After passing out for a
very long sleep that night, she wakes up the next afternoon to find out that
their video has gone viral. I've been anticipating this book for literally years.
I read some of the early chapters on Patreon, so I was really looking
forward to finding out how it actually all put together, and the fact that it's
the first to duology just makes me go, "Hank, I need the second book; can I read it now please?"
Although, if you're familiar with my channel, you probably already know that I was anticipating this book
because not only did I talk about it in an A to Z of Queer Lit video, like, over
a year ago, just before this book was released, I actually released a music
video about it, which was the nerdiest thing I've done, probably, this year, so
I'll link that in places for you. And my final 5 star read and my favorite
read of this month was The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. Stella absolutely loves
her work, but she's at the age where her mom is saying, "hey, I'd like grandbabies;
that would be nice," and I am so fortunate that my mom has never said that to me,
because my brother is doing that job. He has three kids; I don't need to provide
any grandbabies. It's great! The thing is, though, Stella hasn't really ever had a
boyfriend, although she has had sex before. In addition to this, she is also
on the autism spectrum, so she has troubles connecting to people and
doesn't really know how to have sex and have it be an enjoyable thing. So since
she's doing very well in her career, she decides to hire professional help.
Enter Michael, a mixed-race escort who's going to teach her how sex can be wonderful.
This book is great. Not only does it have wonderful representation, in both of
these characters, which is also own voices, it's also very sex positive and
also sex work positive. It fulfills the fake-to-real relationship trope in a way
I've never seen done before, and I just highly, highly, highly recommend it.
If I wasn't really needing my next dose of medication, I could go on about this book
for at least another five minutes, but I talked about it more in my weekly wrap up
so you can always feel free to go watch that. If you'd like to hear me talk more
about these books, or other books for that matter, the playlist for my Weekly
Entertainment Wrap Ups is always listed down in the description below.
If you've read any of these, let me know about it down in the comments below.
On the way down to the comments, if you hit that Subscribe button, that would be very nice of you.
You can like and share this as you see fit, and I'll see you very soon,
hopefully when I'm more healthy. Bye!
[outro music]
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